


Touch

by icarus_chained



Category: Haven - Fandom
Genre: F/M, Partnership, Season/Series 01, Touching
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-22
Updated: 2012-04-22
Packaged: 2017-11-04 03:14:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 768
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/389095
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/icarus_chained/pseuds/icarus_chained
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set somewhere between 1x08 and 1x13, before Audrey knows. Nathan considers what touching means.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Touch

He's too grateful, too obsessed, too desperate. Nathan _knows_ that. He knows it. Everything he feels for her, the way something in him sways towards her every time she's near, it's too much, too deep, too wrong. He knows, he knows.

She touches him, though. She _touches_ him. 

He'd remembered what it was like, to touch things, to feel them, before she came. Vaguely. Sort of. He'd thought he did. He'd thought he remembered what, oh, what warmth felt like, what pressure felt like, the difference in texture between skin and cloth. He thought he remembered pain. He'd _clung_ to remembered pain, to what he'd thought was the memory of pain. Not a real boy, unless you can remember that. Not a real person, unless you can feel that.

He'd thought he remembered. Vague, distant, but real. He'd thought he knew, at least distantly, what it was like for other people, what it was like to touch and not see, what it was like to know when someone rested a hand on your arm, what it was like to _feel_ when someone kissed your cheek. What it was like to not have to check to see if blood was pouring down your back, what it was like to not have to rely on someone else to tell you if coffee was hot enough to burn. He'd remembered, or thought he had, clung to the thought he did.

And then, she came. Then, there was her. And even before he knew, even before she whispered sensation back into his life, she'd still touched him. For the first time since he could remember, even if he couldn't feel her, he could _trust_ her. His partner. She'd touched him in the only ways people still could, and all the ways no-one bothered to despite it. She'd told him when he was bleeding. She'd guarded him when he was hurt, and admonished him for forgetting that pain was not the important part of being injured. She had, so casually, as if it were nothing much, remembered to tell him when his coffee was too hot. She, who couldn't even remember her coworkers' names from one day to the next. She still remembered, for him.

She'd touched him, even before they'd known. Even before she kissed his cheek, and his world turned on its side. She'd touched him, in all those little ways, reached inside him before he ever knew how ... how different she was, how special.

And then ... Then that kiss. That kiss, and sunshine, and _sensation_ , and touch. A burst of pressure against his cheek, and he _hadn't understood_. Not at first, not for whole seconds. He hadn't understood. Because he hadn't remembered. All those memories he clung to, all those lies he told himself, _this is what it is to feel, I know that, I remember that_ ... False. Unreal. Insufficient. He'd had no frame of reference, no concept, after so many years, of what had touched him in that moment. It had taken him seconds, to register, to understand.

She touched him. Touches him. Without care or fear or artifice, beyond the reach of his curse. She leans into him, and there is pressure. She rests her hand on his arm, and there is warmth, and the difference of texture between skin and cloth. She kisses him, and ...

He reaches for her too often, he knows. Tries to brush his fingers against her, tries to lean into her warmth, tries to earn some touch, some hand against his shoulder, his arm. Leans into her touch at his wounds, shuddering in desperation for the mingling sensations of pain and warmth and _her_. For the sensations of life. Of being a real boy. 

He reaches for her. Sways to face her, to follow her every move. He's too obvious, too fragile. He _knows_ that. He is too desperate. He knows that. Too grateful. He knows that. _Obsessed_. He knows. Oh, he knows. But she kisses him. And. She touches him. And.

He wonders if this is love, or something cheaper, uglier. Something using. He wonders if he would know the difference, or if his knowledge of love, his memories of love, like those memories of pain he'd clung to all those years, are too faded and false and distant to ever be real.

He wonders, too, if maybe ... Maybe, she could make them real. Maybe, she could make them true. If ... If, when it's her, when it's Audrey, his love, like his touch ... might be real, and reach him too.

He wonders. But. Tries not to hope. He's too desperate.

He knows.


End file.
